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Why Was Keithroy Halliday Recruited to be General Manager of the BWA?

Keithroy Halliday, GM of the BWA
Kammie Holder

23 March at 14:44 · Four Roads, Barbados ·

 

Dear Jeremy Stephen I note with interest the suggestion pronounced by you on Water in Barbados. However, if the 37% non revenue leakage of water is fixed and the 8WA Solar Farm is built there will be no need for a water rate increase. Corey A Lane Eric Ron Smith Maria Bradshaw David King James Paul Dale Marshall Patrick Tannis Its seems that more and more recently mainstream media seems unable or unwilling to move beyond note taking. The BWA needs to undergo a Forensic Audit on the heels of the recent rate increase. Quote me on that. Is GOB running scared of the Barbados Light & Power rumoured threat of a rate increase if they cut BWA high dependency on Light & Power?

Read the full exchange of this Facebook post

Many Facebook friends who value our opinion will tag David of BU on a daily basis. The above is one of many FB tags this one sent by Future Centre Advocate Kammie Holder. The exchanges are sometimes very informative and helps David of the BU household to be better informed as BU blogmaster..

This exchange provoked BU to ask the question, who is Keithroy Halliday, the recently installed general manager of the Barbados Water Authority. The reason why BU is curious is that we assumed the BWA would have recruited someone with a weighty track record in the business of water resource management. At minimum someone who has experience managing a large organization. To date the BU household has been unable to discover any information to support why Keithroy Halliday was recruited to the important job of General Manager of the BWA.

Minister David Estwick we need to hear you on this one.

69 responses to “Why Was Keithroy Halliday Recruited to be General Manager of the BWA?”

  1. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    Well tell us, BU household, why shouldnt the gentleman NOT be GM.

  2. abajanhowe Avatar
    abajanhowe

    The guy was hired because he has the ability to see a cash cow in us docile Bajans, and probably of certain friends in high places. It has nothing to do with his ability to manage the BWA.

  3. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    People are hired for positions based on their experience which is supposed to be commensurate with the JOB DESCRIPTION…if I remember correctly from the dude’s resume, he has NO experience in water management at all….his resume highlighted how much experience he has in severing people, a bullshit resume really, not suitable for managing a government entity such as water, that is so important to the health and lives of the popuation.

  4. Wily Coyote Avatar
    Wily Coyote

    No one has answered David’s question yet, WHO IS KIETHROY HALLYDAY?

  5. Own Area Avatar
    Own Area

    The question is not who Keithroy Halliday is, it is why was he hired.

    Maybe David Staples of IONICS and AUDITOR GENERAL fame could answer the question. He is a small hint
    PRIVATISATION, PRIVATISATION, PRIVATISATION.

  6. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    I support the call for proper management of the BWA but not at any price and not with the hiring of a former banker and number cruncher whose first duty should be to the customers of the BWA and not the hidden manipulators behind the scene.I have said and will repeat,the BWA is too important an entity,one that provides a life giving mineral imbibed in trust and supplied under the management of well qualified water resource engineering staff,is too important to be managed by political party hacks without proper expertise in this industry.
    There is too much inefficiency in the water resource management and to add insult to injury,the BWA has come out with a new bill that is so full of crap that one wonders why all this information and wasted paper is necessary to inform the payment of a bill.Most forward looking companies are looking to discard and discontinue the use of paper.Not so the backward looking BWA led by an 82 year old drooling duffer asleep on the job with a huge anchor chain around his neck a la ghetto thug style.

  7. Own Area Avatar
    Own Area

    Gabriel

    So you agree with BIZZY and STAPLES that the BWA needs to privatized immediately?

  8. Alvin Cummins Avatar
    Alvin Cummins

    Gabriel,
    Leav3e out all this privatization talk. Private industry does no better than Government. government is criticized constantly, but no one talks much about the badd things Private industry does. the worst scam that was ever perpetrated in this country was done by the Private sector; the sale of BS&T to Massy, which gave a single foreign entity control over land. buildings, import, distribution; control of agencies for everything imported into the country, and the power to control prices for every commodity in the country. No government has ever been so careless with the country’s resources.

  9. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Own Area
    The natural supply of water should always be accepted as a public good.You can go buy your bottled supply at Massy or Popular if you wish but I was born,baptized and nurtured on Bowmanston Liqueur and long may it remain so.
    Staurt is pretending to prefer good governance as a sine qua non for good citizenship.When did he awaken to that revelation?Ye gads,can we believe this enigma for a PM?
    Major Noott came to Combermere School in 1946 as a young Welshman full of ideas and plans for a school of the future.One of his strategies was the use of discipline coupled with the harnessing of the energetic and vibrant willing learners towards the production of well rounded citizens to carry the development of the country Barbados.The Major was a success in this regard.

  10. Own Area Avatar
    Own Area

    AC

    Until overtaken by the BNTCL scheme to privatize the single most profitable entity of the GOB??

  11. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Where did I give Own Area or Alvin the idea that I supported the privitization of the water supply of Barbados?

  12. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Alvin Cummins March 27, 2017 at 9:56 AM #

    We do not elect the private sector,we elect a govt to look after our affairs and on the issue of BS&T and Massy I recall PM Thompson stating that on assuming office he would revoke the sale of BS&T.

    A govt is their to facilitate the workings of the business sector as they are the ones to drive the revenue earning machinery.

  13. David Avatar
    David

    It seems from an online search Halliday has cut his teeth in business managing Cellular Planet in Trinidad. We have tossed out his days as a banker at CIBC. Is this it? What are we missing?

  14. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    Perhaps you should be looking at his connections …. and at who may feel comfortable that he would represent their loyal ‘inside man’ at BWA.

    Cuh dear…
    This is Barbados …and yet you keep on looking around for signs of meritocratic links to government actions…??!!

    Boss, you are amazingly optimistic…..

  15. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Gabriel,

    It took aa tall, trapping Welshman to instil discipline in our public education. He retired in 1961 and we still adore him. Funny thing, colonialism.

  16. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Interesting…..after x generations under colonial rule we have thrown out the baby with the bath water and now complaining about the lack of discipline in our society…..well,well,well.

  17. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Hal Austin
    I like most of my peers of a colonial era revel in the fact that we received a top class education at a nominal cost,of the same quality many of our age group received at the same time in the U.K.You might be aware that the Major was more than a headteacher and the number of changes he made at Combermere will remain with those of us who benefitted from his knowledge and vision.You should know also that he came to Barbados to head that school at the age of 40 and he was retired at age 55,in his prime (as Tom Adams was when he died,)most unusual for one who saw himself as Welsh first and Barbadian second,not to mention that two of his children were Bajan born.
    You can write all the nonsense you like about colonialism.You have proved to me that you have learned nothing as a result of living among some of the more civilized folk on planet earth.Corned beef and sirloin both excite differently.Same animal different taste.

  18. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Gabriel

    You have got it wrong. I was praising the Major, not damning him. Those who heard my address to the UK branch of the Old Scholars, including the Major’s son and widow. We went out and won the 1961 Inter-school Sports as a tribute to him.

  19. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    Who will stand guard?

  20. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Hal Austin
    I certainly misread you.When you said it took such a person to instill discipline in Barbados as whole I think I lost and misinterpreted you there.Btw I seem to recall the school taking the inter-school sports in ’53 or ’54.

  21. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    On a very sad note.

    http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/95052/chekita-loses-battle-cancer

    chekita-belgrave
    Chekita loses battle with cancer
    CHEKITA BELGRAVE, the 20-year-old student who was bravely fighting an aggressive form of cancer, has died. She died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Sunday where she was scheduled to undergo a second bout of chemotherapy this week for the cancer growing inside her mouth and consuming the right side of her face. Chekita’s cancer battle.

  22. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Stop crucifying a guy who has just accepted a job. If we have evidence that he got the job unfairly, speak up or just shut up. This is character assassination.

  23. David Avatar
    David

    @Hal

    How is it character assassination if citizens are curious about what qualifies this man for such an important job at the BWA? Especially what is known in Barbados how people have been recruited to statutory boards in the past?

  24. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    Hal…ya blow too hot and cold, you cannot want the government corruption, nepotism, favoritism, neglect, incompetence and bad governance to end, when no one questions this type of state entity, taxpayer funded hires. …ya cant have it both ways…are you bipolar or something,

  25. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    David,
    Presumably, there was a vacancy and applied for the position, was interviewed and offered the position. If there is evidence that he got the position unfairly then let us have the evidence.
    Don’t crucify the man on the basis of suspicion. This is the nasty side of Bajan culture.

  26. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Well well,
    You have a problem with debating from an ethical po0sition.Venom, anger and bitterness are not the tools for debate.

  27. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    What ethical what, that has nothing to do with ethics, did you hear he went to Combermere ir something….the dude has no experience managing a water resource government entity..with myriad problems……none……people have a right to be concerned…even if it does not concern you…where does any ethics come into that….do they hire funeral durectors to perform neurosurgery.

    …….were you a plumber with no experience as a journalist, when they hired you in the UK as a journalist.

    FYI….here is the definition of ethics..

    eth·ics
    ˈeTHiks/Submit
    noun
    1.
    moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity.
    “medical ethics also enter into the question”
    synonyms: moral code, morals, morality, values, rights and wrongs, principles, ideals, standards (of behavior), value system, virtues, dictates of conscience
    “your so-called newspaper is clearly not burdened by a sense of ethics”
    2.
    the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles”

  28. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    The unethical behavior comes into play because he was hired without the requisite experience to match the job description…..now ya know the meaning of unethical Hal, ya sure ya lived outside of Barbados, sometimes I wonder.

  29. David Avatar
    David

    Of surprise to the BU household is why the BLP Opposition has not seen the opportunity to represent Barbadians by asking why would a problematic BWA hire a man whose recent experience is managing a mobile phone retail outfit in Trinidad.

  30. mother sally Avatar
    mother sally

    He looks like one of them,just right for the job

  31. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    Wait……..what the hell am I seeing on DLPTV?

    The bandit chaser is now chastising Barbadians for the level of disrespect Barbadians have been showing to the PM. The woman had the gall to say that even if we do not like the PM, we have to respect the office. Does he respect us?

    I must remind the bandit chaser of the level of abuse she and her DLP party members threw at George Payne, the BLP and especially OSA and what a drunkard he was……………yes, Madam senator…….we must show respect as according to the lady, the disrespect goes around…….if we disrepect the PM now…….it will continue with a new administration.

    Good to know that she realises that their days are numbered.

  32. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Prodigal
    There is a rumour making the rounds to the effect that the son of a connected spokesman was on the other side of a firearm.Did you hear that rumour?

  33. Prodigal Son Avatar
    Prodigal Son

    Not yet, Gabriel………will check my sources.

  34. Bajan in NY Avatar
    Bajan in NY

    Gabriel March 27, 2017 at 12:08 PM #

    I don’t know about the 50’s, but I do remember we won in the early 60’s when a guy by the name of Straker and Ezra Archer dominated the sprints, Anton Norris the high jump a guy by the name of Broomes clinched it at the end in the mile race.

  35. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    The issue of what qualifies former banker Keithroy Halliday to be appointed General Manager of The Barbados Water Authority (BWA), reminded me of similar “discussions” we previously engaged on BU, relative former banker Sandra Forde’s eligibility to be General Manager of the Transport Board.

    I also recalled the hype created by this inept DLP administration at her appointed to the post in April 2010, as illustrated in the following excerpt from a TB press release dated Tuesday, March 30th, 2010:

    “In its second year of office, on Thursday April 1st, 2010, the Democratic Labour Party CREATED HISTORY by APPOINTING the FIRST FEMALE, Ms. Sandra Forde, to the position of General Manager of the Transport Board……”

    Some of BU’s contributors argued that a TB GM does not require an individual with specialized skills and qualifications in transport management or transport economics, since any manager could perform these duties.

    Other than being a MEMBER and supporter of the DLP and the focal point of “creating history” by her appointment as TB’s “first female” GM, under her tenure we have witnessed CHAOS at TB and a COMPLETE DETERIORATION of its SERVICES, as they struggle on a daily basis to provide an operational fleet of 85 units on the road. Commuters relying on service to rural districts such as Martin’s Bay and Bathsheba have to wait as long as 5 hours for buses.

    Similarly, those contributors may argue that the BWA GM does not require an individual with specialized qualifications, for example, in water resource management, because any manager could do the job.

    Perhaps we should take example from what has been occurring at the Transport Board.

  36. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    @ David

    My contributions seem to be “disappearing.” Could you please check.

  37. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    Take the National Assistance Board (NAB) for example. The NAB’s CURRENT director was appointed to the position AHEAD of a QUALIFIED and EXPERIENCED individual who now holds the position of Assistant Director.

    Why does NAB chairman Dr. David Durant, who is paid a chairman’s monthly stipend of approximately $900 per month and whose duty is to “rubber stamp” policy, finds it necessary to speak on behalf of the Board when there is a Director and Assistant Director who are being paid a monthly salary to perform these duties?

    Is Durant a qualified Social Worker or does he have a BSc or MSc in Social Work?

    Joey Harper did the same nonsense when he was chairman of the Child Care Board.

  38. David Avatar
    David

    @Artax

    The appointment is too important for Barbados to not place it under public scrutiny. If we were in the UK with a similar parliamentary setup many questions would have been asked. Then there is the fourth and fifth estates.

  39. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    One of the problems with mot under-developed nations, especially small island-states, is that the elected politicians have no real power.
    As a result they tend to centralise minor things such as job selection, which they can use as a bargaining tool with constituents.
    The price citizens ay is that indigenisation is the obvious outcome and often to leads to the recruitment of mediocrity – the sons and daughters of the well-connected and of what some in this forum will call yard fowls.
    This centralisation of state authority is also the outcome of the lack of an intense national debate about the kind of society we would like. It leads to suspicion, character assassination and the undermining of those fortunate enough to get prized jobs.
    It also means that many of those able to compete in the outside world would not, or at least hesitate, to accept job offers at home, no matter how attractive.
    Take the case of Dr DeLisle Worrell, the former governor of the central bank; in any situation during his career, he would have been a front runner for that position on the grounds of merit alone. Once he accepted the position, he then made himself aw target for the angry and suspicious.
    It is why on the two serious occasions when I was invited to apply for a job in Barbados I declined.
    This blurring and burying of debates is what the Argentinian intellectual Maristella Svampa calls “deficit of accumulation.”
    But if we play the ball and not the man, given that no system or procedure is perfect, we will make a positive step forward.
    A position becomes vacant in a state organisation; the minister who has nothing of real importance to do injects him/herself in to the recruitment process, rather than leave it to the board chairman.
    Give that the requirements have been made public – and a general manager, for example, is not necessarily a technical expert – and for or five suitably qualified and experienced people are shortlisted and interviewed and the best person, in the view of the interviewing panel, appointed.
    In the real world, when people are preoccupied with real things to do, this would be the end of it.
    In a tiny island this appointment is magnified and every little inquisitive mind begins to wonder how that individual got the job.
    Rumours start and every little devious mind – and those who are retired with nothing to do – start planning, plotting and spreading gossip.
    In the meantime, individuals, their families and friends, are forced to endure what these buffoons think is serious public debate. It is; Barbados style. The productive of a persistent inferiority complex.
    Finally, it is a form of bullying; decent people refuse to take part in these discussions because of the over-hanging threat of being abused in public.

  40. David Avatar
    David

    @Hal

    Do you appreciate that small societies by design will be insular? Unlike the more impersonal configuration of the developed country? Those who decide to serve in small societies like ours must be intelligent enough to accept this characteristic as part of the job description. Becareful not to engage in a wholesale assessment of things Barbados from where you are perched. We have to be pragmatic.

  41. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    Hal…it’s too early to be a jackass…those inquistive, devoius minds did not fire Delisle Worrell, the central bank should not be a gathering of yardfowls controlled by dimwitted politicians and government ministers.

    Real, ethical government ministers do not hire GMs based on party affiliation because the island is small…that is your small minded excuse, they created a mess at transport board hiring yardfowls and have for decades, why do you think the island is in such a mess, of which you too complain…..the difference between you and us…..we want it to change, we are forcing change…..you on the other hand, keep looking for excuses why the mediocrity and stagnation of the people and island should continue and remain, to your delight.

    Think on that.

  42. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI March 28, 2017 at 9:41 AM #

    “Real, ethical government ministers do not hire GMs based on party affiliation because the island is small…that is your small minded excuse, they created a mess at transport board hiring yardfowls and have for decades, why do you think the island is in such a mess, of which you too complain…..the difference between you and us…..we want it to change, we are forcing change…..you on the other hand, keep looking for excuses why the mediocrity and stagnation of the people and island should continue and remain, to your delight.”

    @ WW&C

    Excellent… spot on…. I agree with your comments 100%.

    There are always situations occurring In Barbados, under both BLP & DLP administrations, where the appointment of friends and supporters of the incumbent party, to managerial positions at statutory corporations, has come under scrutiny by ordinary Barbadians.

    This is evidenced by the fact that after a change of government, a number of Directors and other personnel of these quasi government organizations, who were recruited during the previous administration, are dismissed and replaced with the “party faithful,” (as allegedly remarked by former PM Thompson during the 2008 election campaign: “The fatted calf, under David Thompson’s watch, will be slaughtered and shared among those of you who have stood this course…)”

    It is now deemed to be “character assassination” for any individual question the rationale behind appointing, for example, individuals such as Hallaway, Sandra Forde, Derek Allyene and Cranston Browne as GM/Director/CEO of BWA, Transport Board, UDC and NCF respectively, when it is clearly evident the common factor of their qualifications for these positions is party affiliation.

  43. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    David,
    It depends on your interpretation of insular. I am talking about putting principle above bias; of condemning the process, not the person..

  44. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Artax,

    What you are objecting to, and I support you, is not whether Joe Bloggs got the job, but the process of politicians appointing people to these positions. It does not matter if the person is a party member or the man at the end of the street. It is the process.
    Forget the names and talk about the process. Or is that difficult?

  45. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    How Hal expects to sit in Hingland and make determinations about the reality on the ground in Barbados is beyond belief. The man just cannot be serious.

    Bushie keeps BEGGING the man to ASK QUESTIONS…… since the press bout here are too pissing cowardly to do so….., but instead, he persists in giving ‘answers’ based on his Hinglish experience of 40 years…..

    Steupsss…

  46. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    Art…horrible as all these yardfowl appointments were and are, none were more repugnant than tge appointing of Patrick Gollop as GM, I believe it was, to transport board, a collossal, waste of space, failure, fraud and disgusting neanderthal like Gollop could only have been a political appointment.

    What is disturbing about Hal and his “hinglish” standoffishness, is that he believes if we post a few “highlish” themed comments with great manners as the beastly brits been projecting in their animalistic way against black people for centuries. ….that everything will be alright, all the bribery, corruption, nepotism, favoritism and destructive behaviors by ministers and their yardfowls will automatically be fixed and disappear. .., that is Hal being delusional from on high and thousands of miles removed from the island….ehile we do all the heavylifting and dirty work, then he crawls out to critize the means that achieves the end results.

    The brits made Hal a prime example of a dumbed down black man.

  47. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    The process of hiring would be fine if not corrupted by government ministers interfering to hire yardfowls they can control.

  48. Artax Avatar
    Artax

    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI March 28, 2017 at 12:10 PM #

    “The process of hiring would be fine if not corrupted by government ministers interfering to hire yardfowls they can control.”

    @ WW&C

    Exactly!!!!!

    However, I understand the gist of the point Hal is trying to make.

    Since we are told that parliamentarians are elected to facilitate governing the country on our behalf, means that power ultimately belongs to the voter. Therefore, we should be able to demand politicians to appoint suitably qualified individuals to manage various departments, in the interest of Barbadians and the island by extension.

    We should lobby for these changes and display our abhorrence of situations where politicians appoint their constituents, campaign financiers or relatives and friends to jobs at statutory corporations that fall within their portfolios.

  49. David Avatar
    David

    @Hal

    By critiquing the appointment of Halliday as GM we are doing what you want. We can only offer criticism based on the warts which manifest.

  50. Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing BloggerI

    Hal’s Ms. Manners approach cannot solve these decades old problens created by both governments, the problems have to be identified and recognized for the destruction they have caused and eradicated with surgical precision…..we are talking decades of destruction to the minds of the people when governments hire people who are unsuited for the GM posts in these state entities, not to mention the destruction of any economic viability that these entities started with….. they then spend years in these positions. …square pegs in round holes, damaging these entities until they have to be sold off for a pittance.

    How much do any of you think anyone would pay for transport board after the Arthur, Marshall , Jean Marie, Peter Harris gang got hold of it more than 15 years ago….how much would you pay for it if government tries to offload such an inefficient entity.

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